Invisible Agents: Women and Espionage in Seventeenth-Century Britain

by Nadine Akkerman

It would be easy for the modern reader to conclude that women had no place in the world of early modern espionage, with a few seventeenth-century women spies identified and then relegated to the footnotes of history. If even the espionage carried out by Susan Hyde, sister of Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, during the turbulent decades of civil strife in Britain can escape the historiographer's gaze, then how many more like her lurk in the archives?

Nadine Akkerman's search for an answer to this question has led to the writing of Invisible Agents, the very first study to analyse the role of early modern women spies, demonstrating that the allegedly-male world of the spy was more than merely infiltrated by women. This compelling and ground-breaking contribution to the history of espionage details a series of case studies in which women--from playwright to postmistress, from lady-in-waiting to laundry woman--acted as spies, sourcing and passing on confidential information on account of political and religious convictions or to obtain money or power.

The struggle of the She-Intelligencers to construct credibility in their own time is mirrored in their invisibility in modern historiography. Akkerman has immersed herself in archives, libraries, and private collections, transcribing hundreds of letters, breaking cipher codes and their keys, studying invisible inks, and interpreting riddles, acting as a modern-day Spymistress to unearth plots and conspiracies that have long remained hidden by history.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Espionage, British Literature, Feminism, 17th Century, Politics

288 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2018

About the author

Nadine Akkerman is a Reader in Early Modern English Literature at Leiden University. She has published extensively on women's history, diplomacy, and masques, and curated several exhibitions. In the academic year 2015/16 she was Fellow at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences (NIAS-KNAW). She is the editor of The Correspondence of Elizabeth Stuart, Queen of Bohemia (OUP, 3 volumes, of which the first appeared in 2011), for which her prize-winning PhD (2008) serves at the groundwork. She is currently writing a biography of Elizabeth Stuart (forthcoming from OUP). In 2017, the World Cultural Council recognised the transformative effect of her work in the form of a Special Recognition Award.

Reviews

[K.J. Charles]

Such an interesting subject but the writing style is too far on the academic historian side to hold my pandemic-riddled attention. DNF

[Farah Mendlesohn · Rating 5 out of 5]

The last time I skimmed this is was for my own book. I enjoyed what I read so much that I put it on the shelf to come back to, and then spent last week reading it cover to cover.

Highly recommended. A rethinking of some evidence people (mostly men) have looked at before while introducing new material discovered while researching the book after this (so glad I'm not the only person who gets distracted this way). Akkerman steps back from assumptions, interrogates language and genuinely seeks to situate these women within their own times and mores which--and this is unusual--keeps a firm grip on the idea that there was no one way of thinking about women and their morals, and that class and religious allegiance played a large part. Her untangling of Anne Halket's biography is particularly fascinating in this regard, as she demonstrates that Halket's 'sin' is not her marriage to a bigamist, but the lies she had to tell as a spy.

After you've read this I recommend following it up with Pete Langmann's Killing Beauties which uses Akkerman's material for a novel of Civil War spies.

[Mary Catelli · Rating 3 out of 5]

A study revolving about the English Civil War. I found it particularly interesting in terms of spycraft, and the frequent bumbling incompetence, and the discussions about folding letters (which could make it impossible to open without revealing your tampering), and stenography (all the more important in that owning a cypher key was illegal).

[Éowyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read a fair amount of non-fiction, particularly history books. To be honest, this one I did find a bit heavy going, even though the subject matter was interesting - it often read as an academic text rather than one for a more general readership. There are copious footnotes, and these are given as footnotes, at the bottom of each page, rather than as end notes at the end, as is more usual. As so many of these were simply references rather than adding additional information, I feel it would have been more helpful to have tucked them away at the end as is more usual these days.

You can understand the difficulty of a writer on this subject (namely female spies/intelligenciers in the civil war/ Commonwealth period) - the better they were, the less they would have left behind for an historian to find! Indeed, there are some references to writing in various types of invisible ink, but no examples are extant.

A major problem with almost any female historical figure is the lack of information and the male-bias of any that there is! In the case of Elizabeth Murray, Akkerman presents a traditional view of the story and then her own interpretation of the available sources. She could be correct, but it is so difficult to tell. The male view is obviously that spying isn't a job for a woman and also that any woman who does it well is somehow 'unfeminine' and compromises her honour.

Overall, it's an interesting subject, but of course one where information is decidedly a little lacking. I found it heavy-going at times. I appreciate that in quoting original text, Akkerman wanted to retain a flavour of the period, but I do find the way she chose to present quotations to mean they were often quite laborious to read and understand.

[Ian Racey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Seventeenth century spy hunters and modern historians, Nadine Akkerman posits, have one thing in common: they both assume(d) that women didn't have much of a role to play in espionage, and it was that very act that enabled the women spies of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms to act with such freedom, since it never occurred to the men on the other side that they'd be up to no good.

This was a really good read. It's divided into seven chapters. The first two address the general topics of women spies ("she-intelligencers" as Akkerman, admittedly somewhat gratingly, refers to them throughout) on, respectively, the Royalist and Parliamentary sides of the civil wars. It's perhaps surprising that the motivations of the spies divide so neatly down each side--that the women who spied for the Royalists seem to have all done so out of conviction, while those for Parliament did so for money.

There were some really interesting things here, like the discussions of letter-locking--folding your letters in such a way that an interceptor could not open it to read it without letting your true recipient know that the letter had been tampered with. Or learning that John Thurloe, Cromwell's spycatcher-general, hid his own female spies by recording them as "nurses" in his wage ledgers, as much to protect their own reputations (for being outed as a woman spy essentially labelled a woman a harlot) as to hide their activities.

The remaining five chapters each deal with a different individual spy (all of them Royalists). These range from intrigue and adventure with the Countess of Carlisle (the inspiration for Alexandre Dumas's Milady de Winter) to the darkness of Susan Hyde (the only female spy known to have met the same fate as so many male spies, death, at the hands of her captors) to the high farce of Aphra Behn, whose hilarious rivalry with fellow spy Thomas Corney must have been truly bizarre to watch. Several these involve substantial reinterpretation of the accepted reading of the sources or, particularly in the case of Susan Hyde, the bringing to light of new evidence.

[Lesley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very well-researched and put together: I think, however, it would have helped if I as a reader had been a bit better informed about the English Civil War period in general terms.

[Nick · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book seems to take for granted that the reader will have a somewhat deep understanding of the English Civil Wars that form the backdrop of these stories. I didn't. So there was a lot of background Wikapedia-ing involved to keep up.

Other than that, it was a fascinating look into an overlooked part of history.

[Peter Dunn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some of the relatively small number of poorer reviews for this book suggest that readers may have thought that they were going to get some sort of slightly salacious spy thriller, albeit non fictional and set in the 17th century, but thankfully it is much better that. This a detailed, thoughtful, well researched, and extensively documented with references to original sources, historical study of the lives of female spies or as they were sometimes pejoratively known as “She-Intelligencers” during the civil wars across the British Isles, the interregnum and the early restoration period.

It brings to light five such women, and an extensive minor cast list, all of whom were new to me and all of whom deserved to have their tale told whether they were saints, heroines, charlatans or perhaps a little of each of those things dependent on whose side you view them from.

[Amy Macpherson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating study in the role of she-intelligencers during the War of the Three Kingdoms. It's incredible to think that such a colourful cast of characters existed in the seventeenth century. The book is, for the most part, drily written, but books of this nature often are. The vast amount of research and thought that has gone into this work is highly impressive.

[Steven Batty · Rating 3 out of 5]

Purchased this off the back of a Suzannah Lipscombe podcast with the author. An onteresting subject in conversation but not as so in print.

[Asta Schmitz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Here and there I had trouble keeping track of the many Lords (and Earls and Barons and Dukes etc.) and Ladies mentioned but the subject matter of this study is fascinating. Akkerman writes well but the text remains an academic experience. The narrative starts out fragmented, discussing a different female spy in every chapter. As it progresses though, it becomes clear how different circles came into contact with each other and the effect they had on one another (like one royalist faction sabotaging the other).

Akkerman makes it clear there were quite a few female spies active in this time period and does some serious sleuthing herself uncovering evidence (and pointing out mistakes in other people's studies). The history of the period is complex, with a civil war in Britain and The Netherlands under Spanish rule and then an Anglo-Dutch war on top of that. Sometimes I wanted more of a general, introductory history lesson but it was neat to read about the particulars of most players' lives. Especially Aphra Behn.

Being Dutch sometimes added a layer of meaning to the text. For instance, the name Johan De Witt is inextricably linked in every Dutch person's mind with his (and his brother's) gruesome end. It surprised me to read the Queen of Bohemia had a palace in Rhenen, which is near where I now live.

[Rhiannon Grant · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating, detailed, and sometimes revisionary account of women who spied, on both royalist and parliamentary sides. Akkerman provides descriptions of the evidence which I could easily follow without being an expert in this area, and reflects in interesting ways on the roles of gender, class, fiction, and religion in the material she covers.

[Benji · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty interesting overall, but uneven. A series of portraits of sorts of different women involved in Espionage in the Seventeenth-Century. Very intriguing subject, though the subjects themselves are not equally intriguing. Some chapters had me hooked, others found me losing interest.

Certainly worth a read if you find the topic interesting.

[Sarah Swarbrick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a complex book about a period of history that I know so little about. And yet it drew me in as Akkerman unfolded the stories of these women from history. All women who worked as secret agents during the English Civil War. Fascinating.

[Alicia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Meticulously researched but quite dry. I got very little sense of who these women were or what the actual scope of the espionage was.

[Amanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting work on an underreported subject! It is a scholarly work from a university press, so if you are looking for novelistic narrative history look elsewhere.

[Bettie]

Sunday Telegraph